It's cheap for the spec, and already hooked up to a huge screen and good audio equipment, and wireless controllers. That makes it potentially a very good media player.
Hid? He gave his (temporary) address to the UK police. He wasn't hideing. He was just making the Swedish prosecutors go through every piece of paperwork he could, thus ensuring maximum embarassment for them. Last I heard he still is, dragging things out in court as long as possible.
Battery is the most confined level of chicken-farming, and has now been banned throughout the EU (I'm unaware of it's legal status in the US). The chickens are permitted exactly the area of space they occupy, and exactly as much height as they are tall. The 'battery' refers to the rack of chicken-sized cages used. They go in as chicks, and they don't come out until dead or ready for slaughter. As they don't use up any energy by moving - there isn't enough room to take a step - they can survive on a very low volume of food. This makes battery farming by far the cheapest way to produce eggs, even allowing for the cost of antibiotics required.
Individuals might actually benefit: If vat-grown meat could be made cheaper than existing mass production, the only use for cows would be in producing organic-branded products.
I require blind trials before I'll accept such a claim, but it does seem plausible. A more active life and slower growth would have some effect on muscle structure and the amount of fat, which may very well result in different taste.
For maximum screwup potential, try working with children in a country with a continuous pedophile witchunt. You are always just one misspoken word away from coming under suspicion. The management even advises staff to carry their hands at chest height when walking, lest they should accidentially brush against a child's behind and be mistaken for a grope.
That depends on consumption. Alcohol and tobacco, being legal, are something people can get through a great quantity of. Joint-for-cigarette, cannabis is just as good at ruining your lungs.
A bit more, actually - popular belief aside, the tobacco industry doesn't like their customers dropping dead and has put some research into reducing the damage with such inventions as the filter. If cannabis were legal, I imagine it'd benefit from similar measures.
But you won't begin producing stuff on your own again, for the same reason that China produces it now. Competition. The costs of production in China are far lower. You can pay employees for a dollar a day or less, and they'll be happy to have it - try hireing someine in the US for that wage. If they arn't happy, then you can just fire them - plenty more where they came from. Environmental protection laws and health-and-safety regulations are minimal. At the end, it all comes down to money. People arn't going to spent $200 on a Made in America technodoohicky when there is a Made in China one on the next shelf for $20, and the manufacturers know it.
Why wouldn't this 'big Government' have the same effect? You can't have a big government without lots of government employees to administer all those wasteful programs, and lots of contractors.
Where does population density come into this? If you are thinking it affects the cost of delivering services, then it does - but not in a meaningful way unless you consider urbanisation too. Ten thousand people living in one town surrounded by fields are easy, ten thousand people living in scattered farms and villages over the same area are not.
Ultimatly, no biological system is going to last forever: For one thing, it doesn't backup. You're just one really bad day away from being hit by a car or getting struck by lightning. The only real solution is some type of brain scanning - either into a new brain, or into simulation. Such technology is still so far in the future that I think it could be a century before we can even accurately estimate how long it will take. SENS and other advanced medical research are the only way of anyone alive today surviving long enough to have a shot at digital immortality, so it's still an effort worth supporting.
Given sufficient processing power, and a record of a person's life, and sufficiently advanced e-learning... could you program a computer to learn to act exactly as they would in any situation, to the point of being indistinguishable? Hello, immortality.
"Is it really only mental capabilities that make humans worthy of legal and moral protection?"
Can you think of anything else? Other than mental capbilities, humans have only trivial differences from other animals. The biochemical processes are almost identical to those in mice (Close enough to use them in medical research) and the anatomy is just a chimp with slightly differently shaped bones and a lot less fur.
"Rather than classifying animals according to how human they are, I'd rather just respect them for what they are."
But you are just doing something similar to what I suggested - recognising animals as in some way special and deserving of respect, but to a lesser extent than humans. All I suggested was to take that one step further, and unify all organisms human and otherwise on one scale. Obviously humans would be far past even dolphins and chimps, but at least it would be recognised as a difference in capability rather than some sort of supernatural status or just arbitary distinction.
You can't really wiki anything that requires secrecy. It's not practical do do background checks and personal interviews with tens of thousands of volunteers.
There's also a selection bias in popular reporting. With so many experts to choose from, the general media just decides what conclusion they want to support and then goes looking for an expert who agrees and will appear on TV.
The human mind evolved in more than just growing brain. There are a lot of specialised capabilities to handle the conditions in which early humans lived - small, highly social tribes of usually close family ties and interdependance. Thus we ended up with a brain that's exceptionally good at language, at social modeling (Theory of Mind, the ability to imagine the thought processes of another person), and that seeks out social interaction where possible (Loners generally didn't get to mate much). Spartial manipulation and long-term planning for constructing tools and running successful hunts. The ability to associate consequences with action allows for much better adaptation to changing circumstances. A big brain is a requirement for human-like intelligence, but it isn't enough on it's own. You need a few million years of tribal life for that.
I can question it. They may be human genetically and biologically, but do they have the mental capacities which make humans worth legal and moral protections? For a newborn, essentially... no. Their brains come out without even visual processing or basic motor function, and not even a hint of linquistic ability or anything else that makes humans so special. I see no problem with a scale of some sort - rather than just classify all animals as 'human' and 'not human,' find some way to recognise that it's a continuous measure.
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It's cheap for the spec, and already hooked up to a huge screen and good audio equipment, and wireless controllers. That makes it potentially a very good media player.
"provided, of course, that anyone in their right mind would vote for you."
Helps, but not a requirement. Palin made it to governor.
It's soured the relationship between SA and Iran. I consider that a good thing.
Hid? He gave his (temporary) address to the UK police. He wasn't hideing. He was just making the Swedish prosecutors go through every piece of paperwork he could, thus ensuring maximum embarassment for them. Last I heard he still is, dragging things out in court as long as possible.
Battery is the most confined level of chicken-farming, and has now been banned throughout the EU (I'm unaware of it's legal status in the US). The chickens are permitted exactly the area of space they occupy, and exactly as much height as they are tall. The 'battery' refers to the rack of chicken-sized cages used. They go in as chicks, and they don't come out until dead or ready for slaughter. As they don't use up any energy by moving - there isn't enough room to take a step - they can survive on a very low volume of food. This makes battery farming by far the cheapest way to produce eggs, even allowing for the cost of antibiotics required.
Individuals might actually benefit: If vat-grown meat could be made cheaper than existing mass production, the only use for cows would be in producing organic-branded products.
I require blind trials before I'll accept such a claim, but it does seem plausible. A more active life and slower growth would have some effect on muscle structure and the amount of fat, which may very well result in different taste.
For maximum screwup potential, try working with children in a country with a continuous pedophile witchunt. You are always just one misspoken word away from coming under suspicion. The management even advises staff to carry their hands at chest height when walking, lest they should accidentially brush against a child's behind and be mistaken for a grope.
That depends on consumption. Alcohol and tobacco, being legal, are something people can get through a great quantity of. Joint-for-cigarette, cannabis is just as good at ruining your lungs.
A bit more, actually - popular belief aside, the tobacco industry doesn't like their customers dropping dead and has put some research into reducing the damage with such inventions as the filter. If cannabis were legal, I imagine it'd benefit from similar measures.
There is a reason the piracy is centered on Somalia. They have no government that's really worth calling such.
But you won't begin producing stuff on your own again, for the same reason that China produces it now. Competition. The costs of production in China are far lower. You can pay employees for a dollar a day or less, and they'll be happy to have it - try hireing someine in the US for that wage. If they arn't happy, then you can just fire them - plenty more where they came from. Environmental protection laws and health-and-safety regulations are minimal. At the end, it all comes down to money. People arn't going to spent $200 on a Made in America technodoohicky when there is a Made in China one on the next shelf for $20, and the manufacturers know it.
Why wouldn't this 'big Government' have the same effect? You can't have a big government without lots of government employees to administer all those wasteful programs, and lots of contractors.
Where does population density come into this? If you are thinking it affects the cost of delivering services, then it does - but not in a meaningful way unless you consider urbanisation too. Ten thousand people living in one town surrounded by fields are easy, ten thousand people living in scattered farms and villages over the same area are not.
Ultimatly, no biological system is going to last forever: For one thing, it doesn't backup. You're just one really bad day away from being hit by a car or getting struck by lightning. The only real solution is some type of brain scanning - either into a new brain, or into simulation. Such technology is still so far in the future that I think it could be a century before we can even accurately estimate how long it will take. SENS and other advanced medical research are the only way of anyone alive today surviving long enough to have a shot at digital immortality, so it's still an effort worth supporting.
Given sufficient processing power, and a record of a person's life, and sufficiently advanced e-learning... could you program a computer to learn to act exactly as they would in any situation, to the point of being indistinguishable? Hello, immortality.
They've been working on just that, actually. But progress is slow, for much the same reason it's slow in the private sector.
"Is it really only mental capabilities that make humans worthy of legal and moral protection?"
Can you think of anything else? Other than mental capbilities, humans have only trivial differences from other animals. The biochemical processes are almost identical to those in mice (Close enough to use them in medical research) and the anatomy is just a chimp with slightly differently shaped bones and a lot less fur.
"Rather than classifying animals according to how human they are, I'd rather just respect them for what they are."
But you are just doing something similar to what I suggested - recognising animals as in some way special and deserving of respect, but to a lesser extent than humans. All I suggested was to take that one step further, and unify all organisms human and otherwise on one scale. Obviously humans would be far past even dolphins and chimps, but at least it would be recognised as a difference in capability rather than some sort of supernatural status or just arbitary distinction.
You can't really wiki anything that requires secrecy. It's not practical do do background checks and personal interviews with tens of thousands of volunteers.
Nice observation.
There's also a selection bias in popular reporting. With so many experts to choose from, the general media just decides what conclusion they want to support and then goes looking for an expert who agrees and will appear on TV.
Because we want fish. They want fish. There arn't enough fish for both of us. There arn't even enough fish for us.
The Big List of Cliches says that if the nazis wanted some type of sea minion, they'd use sharks.
Given that they have adapted to handle low-temperature submersion, I would guess they taste extremally fatty. Fat is a good natural insulator.
The human mind evolved in more than just growing brain. There are a lot of specialised capabilities to handle the conditions in which early humans lived - small, highly social tribes of usually close family ties and interdependance. Thus we ended up with a brain that's exceptionally good at language, at social modeling (Theory of Mind, the ability to imagine the thought processes of another person), and that seeks out social interaction where possible (Loners generally didn't get to mate much). Spartial manipulation and long-term planning for constructing tools and running successful hunts. The ability to associate consequences with action allows for much better adaptation to changing circumstances. A big brain is a requirement for human-like intelligence, but it isn't enough on it's own. You need a few million years of tribal life for that.
I can question it. They may be human genetically and biologically, but do they have the mental capacities which make humans worth legal and moral protections? For a newborn, essentially... no. Their brains come out without even visual processing or basic motor function, and not even a hint of linquistic ability or anything else that makes humans so special. I see no problem with a scale of some sort - rather than just classify all animals as 'human' and 'not human,' find some way to recognise that it's a continuous measure.